Bitcoin broke in the New Year in a particularly powerful way: By breaking the $30,000 price barrier for the first time.
It followed Monday’s news that China, which has long had a softly enforced ban on cryptocurrency, is getting serious about cracking down on cryptocurrencies.
Ether, the second biggest cryptocurrency, fell to $1,730, its lowest price since the end of March.
In May, Chinese officials reaffirmed an old ban that forbids financial firms from actively aiding in the mining and selling of cryptocurrencies.
Key banks and financial services companies like Alipay attended a meeting by China’s central bank, the South China Morning Post reports, where they were told to crack down on cryptocurrency trading.
“Virtual currency transactions and speculative activity have disrupted the normal order of the economy and financial ,” the central bank said in a statement on its website.
The decentralized nature of cryptocurrency is anathema to the Chinese Communist Party’s focus on stability — and control.
Bitcoin enthusiasts are comparing the cryptocurrency to Google, whose share price continued to flourish after being banned in the People’s Republic in 2010.
The memecoin entered the year being valued at less than a cent and was pumped by Elon Musk and an ironic internet movement hoping to boost it to 10 cents — similar to the movement trying to get GameStop’s stock to $1,000.